Most domestic carmakers have been focusing on less expensive short-range EVs, but the change will benefit new companies focusing on long-range electric vehicles like Nio and Byton, as well as established players who have started producing longer range EVs, like BYD.

China also increased the minimum range required for any incentive from 100 km to 150 km (93 miles).

Inexpensive EVs with a relatively short-range have been popular in China in order to get around restrictions on gas-powered cars in cities with a lot of air pollution.

A good example is the popular Baojun E100, a small electric car made by GM’s Chinese joint-venture that can cost just $5,600.

The E100 is going to be safe with a range just over the new limit. Other EVs with ranges between 150 and 400 km are seeing the incentives updated with increasingly more generous rebates for higher ranges.

The government also updated subsidies for electric buses – significantly reducing them for battery-powered buses. For some reason, fuel cell bus subsidies are safe with the updated program.

Electric buses have been really popular in China due to those subsidies. Shenzhen has been building a large fleet of electric buses for years now, and it announced last year that it completely electrified its fleet with more than 16,000 electric buses.

Luxury automakers aren’t in the business of losing money, and BMW doesn’t want to take a hit just because futurists claim the era of EVs is now. Until it has fifth-generation electric vehicle technology on hand, the German automaker plans to go easy on EV production, CEO Harald Krüger told analysts on Thursday.

While Bimmer’s long-range plans still call for 25 electrified models by 2025, 12 of them fully electric, Krüger said it would be too costly to hit the production throttle at this time. How much cheaper are the products designed around BMW’s fifth-generation technology? The difference (in percentage) amounts “a two-digit number,” the CEO claimed.

“If you want to win the race, you must be the most cost competitive in the segment, otherwise you cannot scale up the volume,” Krüger said. “We do not want to scale up with the fourth generation.”

Plug-in hybrids aside, the only real EV in Bimmer’s stable is the i3. The plug-in i8 eco-supercar represents the brand’s four-gen battery and electric motor tech, and it’s hardly a mass-market model. Coming next year is an EV version of the Mini Cooper hardtop.

It’s 2020 when BMW hits the gas — or, more specifically, begins leaving gas in the rear-view. That year, the electric iX3 crossover (an X3, minus the ICE and fuel tank) appears, the first of many new i-badged models. In an announcement earlier this week, the automaker said it would invest a further $8.6 billion to help in the roll-out. A flexible platform accommodating all types of propulsion sources makes the plan possible.

Until the new architecture and battery technology arrives, there just isn’t a way for Bimmer to create a mass-market vehicle with a competitive range and a reasonable sticker price — unless the automaker decided to sell it at a great loss.

Another model arriving soon, possibly in 2020, is the i4, an EV modelled after the i Vision Dynamics concept car. Speaking to AutoExpress, Krüger claimed the vehicle — and others like it — would possess a driving range of 340 to 435 miles. That figure is most likely based on the European driving cycle, meaning an EPA-tested range of up to 270 miles.

Mercury C557

XFC Reality - Xtreme Fast ChargingCheers&Gears - dfelt, Editor/Reporter - 4/19/2018Tesla is the current GOLD standard of EV auto charging. Their roughly 400 North American Charging stations handle 120-140 k﻿Wh charging that allows Tesla to brag about their 90 kWh battery packs recharging in 1hr compared to 10 hrs for a Nissan Leaf, 8hr for a Chevrolet Bolt if you home charge. Tesla's cust﻿omers have had this perk and until now been able to brag about it. Tesla made sure they had this by using a proprietary plug that kept other EV auto's from using the Tesla Network.

In comes IONITY, the European group consisting of Porsche, VW, BMW, Daimler and Ford. This is a 400 plus Xtreme Fast Charger network being built now in Europe. A 350 kWh network that covers from 200 to 920 volts at 350 Amps of charging that will allow EV Auto's to refill in 15 min or less. This allows EV auto's that need from 50 kWh to 350 kWh of capability to be handled by these new Liquid cooled Charging stations. The technological breakthrough is in the Charging cables that connect to your EV Auto. These are light, thin charge cables that remove the heat load by liquid cooling in high amperage use. These XFC system charge aproximately 20 miles of range per minute or 300 miles in 15 minutes.

How Does This Benefit North America, Specifically the US?
This is where the proprietary Nissans Charging (CHAdeMO) and Tesla interface are about to Lose the EV Charging race. The XFC interface uses the CCS (Combined Charging System) based on the J1772-2009 SAE standard. This has been adopted by pretty much every country in the world as the standard except China where they have this standard, Tesla and their own Chinese standard as the 3 plug types that have to be supported at this time. The US is expected to move forward with Nissan changing over in the near future.

Porsche is installing 500 of their XFC chargers across the US at dealerships and various EVgo sites. There is also Electrify America, a subsidiary of VW and funded by the $2 Billion plus funding they have committed to for installing XFC charging across America in addition to all the EV charging infrastructure funding that was paid to each state in the settlements. From Level 2 to Level 4 (XFC) charging will get installed from inner city places to suburban and especially highway stops that can support long distance driving by EV auto's.

The future is bright for the upcoming onslaught of EV auto's including the Electrify America's Chargers as shown above.

...North America as a whole spends more on gas per person then practically everywhere else on the globe, though. An affinity for larger vehicles, combined with more time spent behind the wheel, translates into burning more fuel overall. I suppose one could make the argument that we need cheaper petroleum since we use so much of it...

...For example, the United Kingdom has prices set around $6.59 for a gallon of that good stuff but the average citizen only uses 69.67 gallons a year. However, the average American turns 429 gallons of gasoline into forward motion.

Bloomberg recently ran a study in which it compared average fuel prices between 61 countries, looking specifically at the per-gallon prices, how that price compares to wages in each country, and how much of it each citizen is burning in a standard year.

After two months of an almost uninterrupted increase, crude oil is set for even more volatility on a string of political events that could see it either touch US$80 or even higher by the end of June or, conversely, slump to deep lows again...
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With the acquisition of NewMotion Shell owns more electric charging units in Europe than gas stations.

At the Shell Eco-marathon, Yuri Sebregts Executive Vice President Chief Technology Officer for Shell Global said, “we realize that people’s mobility needs today are largely based on the Internal Combustion Engine.” But as Shell’s President, Bruce Culpepper said at the Powering Progress Together symposium, “We follow our customers.” The key, as he pointed out, was figuring out how to make sense of the low-carbon projects economically.

Shell recently purchased NewMotion, the largest electric charging group headquartered in the Netherlands. Since 2009, NewMotion has grown its public charge network to over 50,000 charge points across 22 countries. Shell has about 14,000 gas stations in the United States and 30,000 in Europe. The acquisition will help NewMotion reach its goal of turning more parking spaces into charging stations as well as improving users charging experience across Europe. Shell expects around a quarter of the global vehicle fleet to be electric by 2040. By adding EV charging units to its already existing infrastructure Shell is keeping its customers and creating new revenue streams.

Shell is putting recharge units in their European stations, a pay-as-you-go EV with no subscriptions or connection fees needed. You only pay for the power used to recharge your EV (currently offered at 25p per KwH until 30th June 2018, whereas others are charging 49p per kWh).

The International Energy Agency (IEA) just released The Energy Progress Report. The good news from the report is that “there is mounting evidence of the uncoupling of growth and energy use. Global gross domestic product (GDP) grew nearly twice as fast as primary energy supply in 2010-15. Six of the 20 countries that represent 80 percent of the world’s total primary energy supply, including Japan and the US, reduced their annual primary energy supply in 2010-15 while continuing to grow GDP – indicating a peak in energy use.”

For Shell to meet its goals of the Paris agreement it has introduced SKY – a scenario from now to 2070, of what they will have to do to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees centigrade.

The IEA reported that “One billion people – or 13% of the world’s population – still live without electricity. Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and South Asia continue to be the areas of the world with the largest access deficits. Almost 87% of the world’s people without electricity live in rural areas.

The number of people gaining access to power has been accelerating since 2010 but needs to ramp up further to achieve universal access to electricity by 2030. If current trends continue, an estimated 674 million people will still live without electricity in 2030.”
At the Powering Progress Together Symposium Culpepper talked about creating energy in pioneering countries.

Shell is also working with auto companies to create ultra-fast charging. IONITY is a joint venture between BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company and the Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche, which was formed to create a network of 350-kilowatt chargers next to major highways in Europe. The collaboration with Shell allows IONITY to install its fast charging infrastructure at major thoroughfares and will make electromobility significantly more convenient and the charging capacity of up to 350 kW throughout ten European countries: Belgium, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Shell is partnering with hydrogen companies and car companies. At the Shell Eco-Marathon, Sebregts and I talked under the STEM tent. I told him about the hydrogen chat I had at the Linde hydrogen corner with 13-year-old Charlie from Loma Verde on how to create hydrogen. Sebregts talked about the Shell Eco-Marathon and what the kids get out of the event.

It is very difficult to create a coherent energy infrastructure for the next sixty years when one region of the globe is changing the rules every administration turnover. At the same time that California and seventeen other States are suing the current administration to defend the previous administration’s climate rules for vehicles, Shell is creating a sixty-year plan to meet the Paris agreement, called SKY, meeting with companies in the energy business, the automotive business, and the renewables business. Shell plans to spend $1 billion annually on renewables by 2020.

At the same time that the auto alliance is saying that “maintaining a single national program is critical to ensuring that cars remain affordable,” Shell is partnering with Toyota to create renewable hydrogen from agriculture waste for its drayage truck in Los Angeles port. Shell is working with companies globally to create a coherent energy infrastructure that meets the regulations of the World. These collaborations are how you become a 100-year-old global company that has plans to be around in another 100-years.

As Shell’s self-described conservationist President, Bruce Culpepper said at the Powering Progress Technology symposium, “It used to be called being a good neighbor.”

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https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/ford-says-battery-tech-still-too-immature-for-a-proper-performance-ev
FORD’S upcoming all-electric SUV may have leaned pretty heavily on the Mustang’s mystique when it was announced at Detroit, but despite being announced under the “Mach 1” moniker Ford’s EV...

I was browsing the MT website and finally we have more concrete information about the new GM/Ford Transverse Nine Speed Transmission. :cool:
http://www.motortrend.com/news/peeking-inside-the-gmford-transverse-nine-speed-automatic/
"There’s been a flurry of recent information released about...

Ford invents new stamping technology - Detroit News
Innovation funded by U.S. grant cuts time, cost to craft auto parts
Karl Henkel
July 3, 2013
Ford Motor Co. says it has used a federal grant to develop a first-of-its-kind stamping technology that will allow it to create low-volume auto parts...

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